This year brought the next generation of public transportation to the capital with the opening of the Jakarta MRT and other innovations to reduce traffic in the city.

The first line of the MRT, which links Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle in Central Jakarta, has become the most popular new mode of transportation. Commuters and tourists have flocked to it daily.

The enthusiasm has been sustained since the line’s first day of operation on March 23. From March 24 to Nov. 26, the Jakarta MRT said it had served a total of 19.9 million passengers, with an average of 83,516 passengers daily and a record of 93,165 passengers in one day.

Financially, the company seems to be doing well, in spite of heavy government subsidies. It booked Rp 60 billion (US$4.2 million) in profit from over Rp 1 trillion in revenue. The revenue came from ticketing at Rp 180 billion, non-ticket revenue at Rp 225 billion, subsidies at Rp 560 billion and miscellaneous revenue such as bank interest at Rp 40 billion.

The first line of the MRT spanned 15.7 kilometers and cost Rp 14.3 trillion. The central government is covering 49 percent of the construction cost while the remaining 51 percent is covered by loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The MRT is currently constructing its second line from HI traffic circle, consisting of seven stations over more than 7.8 km to Ancol, North Jakarta, costing Rp 22.5 trillion.

The MRT is not the only new rail in town. The city also welcomed the Jakarta LRT, constructed and operated by city-owned PT Jakarta Propertindo. It began operation on Dec. 1 after a 1.5-year delay from its initial target to begin operation for the 2018 Asian Games.

The LRT system, which is the second to be constructed in the country after the one in Palembang, South Sumatra, consists of a 5 km line from the Jakarta International Velodrome to Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta, with six stations.

The Jakarta LRT said it had served an average of 7,000 passengers daily since its official opening on Dec. 1.

Despite criticism that the line is too far from the city center to effectively operate, the administration plans to extend it from Kelapa Gading to Sunter Agung, North Jakarta, and from the Velodrome to Manggarai, South Jakarta. This second phase of the Jakarta LRT will begin next year.

Another LRT project is also in the making, by state-owned construction company PT Adhi Karya. The Greater Jakarta LRT expects to begin operation in 2021, spanning 83.6 km and linking East Jakarta to Central Jakarta.

The construction is more than halfway done and the first LRT train was placed at Harjamukti Station in Cibubur in October. The service will operate 31 trains with a total capacity of about 1,500 passengers. It will also have 17 stations and be divided into three sections: Cibubur-Cawang, East Bekasi-Cawang and Cawang-Dukuh Atas.

Both the MRT and the LRT are limited to the city proper. For millions of people in satellite cities, the commuter line (KRL), remains the most reliable rail-based transportation with packed train cars almost every rush hour.

As of October, state-owned operator PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia (KCI) had reached 81.13 percent of its 2019 target by serving a total of 278.71 million passengers, an average of 916,799 passengers per day.

The company plans to add more trips, trains and tracks in order to serve 1.5 million passengers per day in 2020.

Rail carried large numbers of people in Jakarta this year, but to reach every nook and cranny of the city, Transjakarta fit the bill, having proven its continued relevance as the city’s 15-year-old Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.

Transjakarta serves multiple routes on its 13 main corridors on the city’s main thoroughfares. It also serves hundreds of other locations through its non-corridor routes and the addition of angkot (public minivans) under the Jak Lingko program.

The city bus system says it covers 80 percent of Jakarta by area, with the nearest bus stop at a pedestrian-friendly maximum of 500 meters within the coverage area.

The company serves 900,000 passengers daily, targeting 231 million passengers by the end of 2019, compared to last year’s 189.77 million.

With the greater availability of public transportation, private vehicles were limited with the expansion of the odd-even traffic policy in September.

The odd-even traffic policy, previously only implemented on Jl. MH Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta, has been expanded to 29 arterial roads.

According to the Jakarta Transportation Agency, the areas affected by the policy have seen average vehicle speed increase by 8.91 percent from 25.66 km per hour (kph) to 28.16 kph, according to data during the trial expansion of the policy in August.

The general increase in vehicle speeds has cut the average commute time from 16.46 to 15.25 minutes and has caused a 19 percent reduction in the volume of private vehicles in the affected areas.

A similar policy is also enforced on toll roads by the Greater Jakarta Transportation Body (BPTJ), including on the Jagorawi toll road, the Jakarta-Tangerang toll road and the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road.

The BPTJ found that the policy had benefitted almost all vehicles as the average speed on Jakarta’s arterial roads increased from 25.12 kph to 30.85 kph in July 2019. It reached 36.83 kph in the initial weeks of the odd-even policy expansion.

However, the odd-even policy is only temporary. It is a precursor to the electronic road pricing scheme, which, according to the Greater Jakarta Transportation Plan, should be implemented in 2020.

According to a BPTJ study, by the end of 2019, public transportation will have become the choice for 32 percent of commuters, covering 67 percent of Greater Jakarta, while also improving average vehicle speed.

In 2017, public transportation users made up 24 percent of commuters in Greater Jakarta

The surge came amid a massive increase of traffic in Greater Jakarta, from 47.5 million daily commutes in 2015 to 88 million in 2018.

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